DO YOU KNOW WHERE FORT MACON'S GUNS WENT?
The Friends of Fort Macon have long had as a goal the purchase of a suitable reproduction of at least one of Fort Macon's cannons to be mounted on the walls. At the same time it might be asked "Where did the fort's original cannons go and why can they not be brought back?" Fair Question. Here is what we know about the fort's original cannons:
During the Civil War Fort Macon possessed over 50 heavy seacoast cannons. Most of this armament of 24- and 32-pounders and 8- and 10-inch Columbiads were supplied by the Confederates. Union forces retained most of this armament when they captured the fort in 1862, and added a few others such as two 100-pounder Parrott Rifles and two 10- inch siege mortars. After the Civil War, however, it was felt there was no further need to have so many old, now-obsolete smoothbore cannons, especially as some of Fort Macon's 24-pounders were over 30 years old. In 1866, Ordnance Department officials ordered the 10 remaining 24-pounders at Fort Macon condemned and sold. In addition, 18 remaining 32-pounders were likewise condemned but, because they were old Navy 32- pounders which Confederates had obtained from the Norfolk Navy Yard in 1861, they were ordered to be returned to the Navy Department for disposition. In 1867 these latter guns were shipped to the New York Navy Yard for final disposition. Usually old condemned guns such as these were sold off by the Ordnance Department for their metal value. Sometimes the guns were physically broken up by driving rows of cold chisels into them until they cracked apart.
During the 1870s, Fort Macon's armament consisted of two 10-inch Columbiads, five 8-inch Columbiads, four rifled 32-pounders, six 24-pounder howitzers, two 100- pounder Parrot Rifles, two 10-inch siege mortars, and two 12-pounder "Napoleon" field pieces. At some point prior to 1877, when the fort was deactivated at the end of Reconstruction, all these guns apparently were condemned and sold with the exception of six. These six--two 100-pounder Parrott Rifles, two 10-inch siege mortars, and two 12- pounder Napoleons--were retained as fort armament until the turn of the century. During the Spanish-American War of 1898, these six venerable old guns were remounted by the Engineer Department and would have been the fort's defense if Spanish warships had dared to enter Beaufort Inlet.
At the turn of the century, Fort Macon's last six guns were removed. Back on May 22, 1896, Congress had approved an Act which authorized that old condemned Civil War- era cannons still on hand in arsenals and military posts could be donated to cities, veteran organizations and soldier homes as monuments. It is by this Act that so many old Civil War cannons now rest today on town greens, in cemeteries and in front of public buildings. In February, 1900 the city of Spartanburg, S.C. applied for the two 100- pounder Parrott Rifle cannons at Fort Macon and were given them by the Ordnance Department under date of February 23, 1900, along with 40 cannonballs. Spartanburg had the guns dismounted from the fort and ferried across the harbor to the railroad depot in Morehead City, where they were carried by rail to Spartanburg. The two guns and cannonballs were subsequently mounted to flank a statue of Revolutionary War hero Daniel Morgan in "Morgan Square" in downtown Spartanburg. Unfortunately, during World War II, these two guns were melted down in a scrap drive and no longer exist.
Of the remaining four guns at Fort Macon, the two 12-pounder Napoleons were ordered turned over to the Augusta Arsenal, Ga., since bronze cannons such as they were exempted from donation under the 1896 Act. In December, 1901 they were turned back in to the Augusta Arsenal. In 1902, the city of Raleigh, N.C., applied for the last two Fort Macon guns, the two 10-inch siege mortars, to go in front of the old Confederate Soldier's Home on New Bern Avenue in accordance with the 1896 Act. This was granted on May 28, 1902 and the mortars later were taken by rail to Raleigh. They sat in front of the Soldier's Home until 1944, when they were moved to the front of the Agriculture Department Building. In 1953 they ended up being returned to Fort Macon--almost by accident. Park Service officials asked if they might be used at Fort Macon as examples of the kinds of guns used against the fort in the 1862 battle, and the City of Raleigh expressed no objection to giving them to the Park Service. No one seemed to realize at the time that they had come from Fort Macon to begin with. Thus two of the fort's original guns are now back at the fort.
Do any of the other guns condemned and turned in to arsenals still exist? No. Those turned in from Fort Macon in the 1860s and 1870s probably were sold off and broken up. Any still remaining in the Arsenals after 1896 were doled out as monuments under the 1896 Act and are scattered around the country today. No effort seems to have been made to keep track of any serial or foundry numbers on these guns so it would not be possible now to track them down and determine if any of the old guns given out from the arsenals after 1896 might have once been some of the ones turned in from Fort Macon in the 1860s and 1870s. It is sufficient to say they are all gone today other than the two mortars in the fort. Thus, if cannons are ever to grace Fort Macon's ramparts again, they will have to be modern reproductions.